Thursday - October 11

Wednesday - October 10

Bike

50m 47s

17.56 miles

20.75 Mi/hr

Cold and windy today - so I bought a long sleeve bike jersey, and some bike gloves. It's probably going to be like this for the long term, so this way I can still get out and ride for hopefully the next 2 months or so.
I also brought my bike in to get it fitted today. The guy took all my measurements and checked some measurements on the bike, and do you know what he did? He lowered my seat a half an inch. He said everything else was spot on. I have very little hope that that will solve my problem. I've been above and below the current seat position before, and my discomfort remains.
I'll try this for a few times, and then I'll probably try a new seat. The other suggestion the bike guy had was to raise the handlebars. I have a 6-inch drop from my seat to the elbow pads, which is very large. Raising the bars is easier said than done in my case, however. The fork's top bar on my bike was cut very short, so I would either need a new fork or a new stem.
The other option is to raise the pads on the handlebars to get me out of such a deep aero position. We were thinking of getting some sort of spacers and longer screws to get the pads up higher than the bars. At least there are a few things to try.
After all that, when I actually got to the ride, I wasn't feeling it. I cut it short because I just wasn't into it. Better than no ride at all, I guess.

Tuesday - October 9

Run

41m 17s

6.20 miles

06m 40s /Mi

New PR by 41 seconds. Unlike my previous PR, I was really pushing myself today. Conditions were much better for running today - 58 degrees, 8-10 MPH wind.
Splits:
2.5K - 10:20
5K - 20:55 (10:35)
7.5K - 31:21 (10:27)
10K - 41:17 (9:56)
The negative split looks nice, but the way back was with the wind, and with the big downhill near the end.
It's amazing how much a difference taking a day off from running can make. And when your day off is cross training, you can still get a workout in.
I also noticed that today's run puts me over 500 miles for the year. That's kind of cool.

Monday - October 8

Swim

45m

1640.42 yards

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6 x 200m repeats today. All times were between 3:35 and 3:40. Total time and distance includes warmup, cooldown, and rest periods of 1-2 minutes between intervals. I figure this is roughly equivalent to the 1000m repeats I did running last weekend, as the times were almost identical.
This is a really good workout. I would suggest it as an alternative to the regular 1500m swim that we've been doing, just to break up the monotony.

Sunday - October 7

Run

42m 06s

5.63 miles

07m 29s /Mi

A thoroughly miserable run today. Did I fall asleep for 9 months and wake up in July? Seriously, 75 and 90% at 7 AM. I was planning to do a 10 mile run today, but I had to cut it short because I felt so terrible.
I think another problem is I might be getting into overtraining. My legs are feeling weaker with each day. I need to take a day off from running and come back strong on Tuesday. I'd also like to make it to the gym for a swim this week, so maybe that can happen tomorrow.
Just thinking about the plan for the next 2 weeks leading up to the half, here is the tentative plan:
Monday - swim
Tuesday - medium run (6 miles)
Wednesday - bike (25 miles)
Thursday - off
Friday - short run (3-4 miles)
Saturday - off (out of town)
Sunday - long run (8 miles)
Monday - off
Tuesday - medium run (6 miles)
Wednesday - swim
Thursday - short run (3-4 miles)
Friday - off
Saturday - off
Sunday - race
This is a first draft, likely to change upon further review. The goal is to keep my endurance and stamina up, but have strong, fresh legs for the 21st.

Saturday - October 6

Run

32m 25s

4.10 miles

07m 55s /Mi

Easy run today. I ran without a watch this time, to try to hit the right pace just by feel. I was hoping to do this run in 32:00, so this was pretty close.
Warm and muggy already at 7AM (70, 90% humidity). It feels like July again.

Friday - October 5

Run

57m 36s

8.00 miles

07m 12s /Mi

Splits:
5K - 21:54 (7:04 pace)
next 5K - 22:32 (7:14 pace)
final 1.8 miles - 13:10 (7:19 pace)
I'm a little disappointed with this run, although it was still a decent effort. It was fairly warm for 6:30 on an October morning (65, 90% humidity). I was hoping to do 8 miles in 56 minutes, for 7-minute pace. I figured if I can do that, I should be able to keep up close to 7:10 pace for the half marathon.
I officially signed up this week. When you sign up, they ask you for a predicted finishing time. I said 1:33. I immediately regretted that, and I wished I would have said 1:35. It probably doesn't matter that much. Today's pace would get about 1:34:30.
Update: As I sit here a few hours later, I think my legs were still a little tired from the bike ride on Wednesday. Usually when I do shorter runs, my leg strength is fine, it's my breathing that gets going hard. When I do longer runs, I don't get out of breath, but my legs start to wear out. The intermediate runs are usually in between. Today, I never felt like I was breathing hard, but my legs were wearing out. I was able to stay close to 7-minute pace for the first 4-5 miles, but then my times started to slow as I got near the end. Usually I can kick hard at the end and get faster. So I will take this as a sign of encouragement.